The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, December 28, 2018

Report issued by satellite imaging company ISI shows extensive damage to site targeted in airstrike near Damascus, largely attributed to Israel

A satellite image of a site
targeted in Wednesday's airstrike in Syria
Photo: ImageSat
International

An intelligence report issued by the
satellite imaging company ImageSat International (ISI) on Thursday
revealed the aftermath of the recent airstrikes in Syria, largely
attributed to Israel.

According to reports, the target of the
airstrikes was an Iranian weapons depot near Damascus. The satellite
images unveiled Thursday showed extensive damage to the targeted site. A
caption on the satellite imagery indicates that the site was
"completely destroyed."

London-based war monitor Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights said Wednesday that three weapons facilities,
belonging to Iran and Hezbollah, had been targeted outside Damascus
overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday.

The ISI report included a survey of the
targeted area, focusing on a reported Iranian weapons facility inside
the Division 4 camp. The report further concluded that there was no
evidence of attacks on the airport in Damascus or in Al-Kiswah.

Israel HayomSource: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/12/27/satellite-images-reveal-iranian-facility-destroyed-in-syria-strike/ Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Moscow's ire over the latest reported Israeli strike in Syria is fueled by the strategic behind-the-scenes struggle between Russia and the U.S., in which Israel is merely a pawn

A reported Israeli
strike in Syria on ‎Wednesday ‎was, according to foreign media reports, a
clear ‎signal that despite the strategic changes in the ‎region, Israel
will continue to adhere to its declared policy of ‎preventing Iran from
entrenching itself militarily ‎in the war-torn country, and preventing
Tehran ‎from arming Hezbollah, its regional proxy, with ‎advanced
weapons. ‎

Russia was furious over Wednesday's
operation, ‎saying the strike placed civilian aircraft in harm's ‎way,
but foreign media reports have quoted unnamed ‎officials as saying that
the Russians were informed in advance ‎of the raid through the
operational hotline Israeli ‎and Russian forces in Syria maintain.

If this was indeed the Israeli Air Force's
‎handiwork, Russia's castigation is likely intended ‎for several ears:
first, for the Syrians, who must ‎be wondering why Moscow allows Israel
to continue ‎operating freely in their airspace; second, for ‎leaders
near and far, with the aim of reaffirming ‎Russia's status as the
dominant superpower in the ‎Middle East; and third – and most important –
for ‎Israel, which again learned that the Kremlin is no ‎longer willing
to turn a blind eye to such ‎operations and may, in the future,
translate its ‎disapproval into various measures on the ground.‎

The Russian claim that Syrian air defenses
‎intercepted most of the IAF's missiles should, as ‎usual, be taken with
a big grain of salt. Syrian air ‎defenses did launch dozens of missiles
at their ‎targets, so it is reasonable to assume they were at least
somewhat successful, but Moscow's sweeping claim is likely motivated by
an effort to prove that Russia's S-‎‎300 missile defense systems
provided to Syria are ‎superior to American defense systems. ‎

This is a struggle between the superpowers
in which ‎Israel is merely a pawn and one where no punches – ‎even
half-truths – are pulled.‎ This has created a delicate equation that
requires ‎Israel to tiptoe between the lines, especially given ‎U.S.
President Donald Trump's decision last week to ‎withdraw of all American
troops from Syria. ‎

Israel will undoubtedly have to counter
Iranian and ‎Hezbollah moves in the future – perhaps even in the ‎very
near future. Moscow will no longer be as ‎sympathetic to such action and
it falls to Israel to ‎spare no effort to foster the necessary
‎understandings so as to avoid mistakes, and ‎especially to avert a
situation where an offensive ‎move devolves into a strategic problem.‎

This is not impossible, and it seems that
Israel can ‎still maintain the necessary operational leeway, as ‎long as
it maintains prudence and engages in selective action, ‎as it has been
doing in recent months.‎

Meanwhile, the mounting tensions with Syria
are ‎offset by a relative calm on the Israel-Lebanon ‎border, as
Israel's countertunnel operation seems ‎to be nearing its end. ‎

Operation Northern Shield, launched on Dec.
4 with ‎aim of detecting and destroying a network of ‎Hezbollah terror
tunnels snaking under the border, ‎has so far unearthed five underground
passageways ‎breaching Israeli territory.‎

Defense officials believe the operation
will be ‎completed within two weeks, at which point the IDF ‎will
refocus its attention on completing the new ‎border fence and Hezbollah
will undoubtedly try to ‎compensate for its loses by devising new ways
to ‎‎"conquer the Galilee" in the next war.‎

The IDF is convinced that Hezbollah will
not waste ‎any more resources on digging tunnels, but rather ‎look for
new ways to challenge the Israeli military ‎in the northern sector. ‎

One of the things to look out for is
whether the ‎Shiite terrorist group will accelerate its
‎precision-missile development program in Lebanon, ‎something that would
cause tensions in the sector to ‎spike and may even trigger another
war. ‎

Israel must meet this possibility fully
prepared ‎both militarily and diplomatically, meaning it must ‎also
ensure it has international legitimacy to act. ‎This is another key
reason to resolve, or at least ‎downplay, the ongoing disagreements with
Russia. ‎

Yoav LimorSource: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/12/27/israel-has-no-choice-but-to-operate-in-syria/ Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

And why a “virtual fence” will stop no one.

President Trump has demonstrated, once again, that he is a man
of his word, opting to shut down the government rather than accede to
the globalist Democrats who refuse to provide funding for the wall to be
erected to help secure the dangerous and porous U.S./Mexican border.

Schumer, Pelosi and others, mostly Democrats, have opposed a wall and
called for drones and other elements of a “virtual fence” along the
southern border insisting that a wall would be too expensive and not
needed.

As I noted in an earlier article, America Needs A Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation,
just as the cost of insulating houses ultimately saves money, by
keeping warm air from escaping the house in the winter, insulating
America against contraband (including deadly, dangerous narcotics),
illegals and the criminals and terrorists among them, would protect
America and Americans; and help staunch the flow of tens of billions of
dollars annually sent out of the United States by illegal alien workers
and criminals.

The cost of a secure border wall should be
considered an investment in national security, public safety and the
livelihoods of American workers. This is one investment that would not
only pay for itself and, indeed pay dividends, but save many, many
innocent lives.

For years, drones--also known as UAV’s
(Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)--have been deployed along that border at
great expense and with little or nothing to show for the costly effort.

The deployment of the U.S. military’s Predator UAV’s to support the
Border Patrol’s efforts to secure our borders provided many Americans
with a sense of security. After all, the military relies on
those drones and we all know the U.S. military’s prowess at achieving
national security goals and objectives.

In reality, for the
most part, that sense of security provided by the drones has been false
security. False security is worse than no security.

The stark
and irrefutable reality is that drones and other such devices cannot
stop the entry of any illegal aliens or contraband.

Drones can spot illegal aliens and contraband only after our borders have been violated. This is true for all of the technological devices that are deployed along the border.

Furthermore, unmanned drones cannot make arrests. All that drones,
pole-mounted cameras, radar and other sensors can do is transmit alerts
and images to alert members of the U.S. Border Patrol that illegal
entries into the United States have already taken place. The Border
Patrol then must have the resources to respond to those alerts and
images provided by the drones and other costly high-tech devices.

In response to President Donald Trump’s call for a border wall, some
members of Congress have instead offered a “virtual wall”—ocean-to-ocean
border surveillance with technology, especially unmanned aircraft known
as drones. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) already operates a
fleet of nine unmanned aircraft. Although drones have been widely used
in foreign battlefields, they have failed to help CBP apprehend illegal
border crossers and seize drugs. Drones have led to only 0.5 percent of
apprehensions at a cost of $32,000 per arrest. At the same
time, drones undermine Americans’ privacy. Their surveillance records
the daily lives of Americans living along the border, and because CBP
regularly uses its drones to support the operations of other federal
agencies as well as state and local police, its drones allow for
government surveillance nationwide with minimal oversight and without
warrants. CBP should wind down its drone program and, in the meantime,
establish more robust privacy protections.

Drones cannot assist Border Patrol agents who come under attack by
illegal aliens and alien smugglers. All that drones can do is transit
images of agents who are being attacked and other agents then need to
respond to back up the agents who are being attacked.

“The bad guys on the border have lots of money and
what they are putting money into is into spoofing and jamming GPS
systems. We’re funding some advances so we can counter this,” said
Timothy Bennett, a science-and-technology program manager at the
Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP. Those bad guys
aren’t ISIS, just traffickers, Bennett said on Dec. 16 at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies “It’s more about trafficking drugs
and people,” he told Defense One. “We know who’s over there. We can guess who’s doing it.”

On December 24, 2014 the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report, “U.S.
Customs and Border Protection's Unmanned Aircraft System Program Does
Not Achieve Intended Results or Recognize All Costs of Operations” that included the following assessments:

Although CBP’s Unmanned Aircraft System program contributes to
border security, after 8 years, CBP cannot prove that the program is
effective because it has not developed performance measures. The program
has also not achieved the expected results. Specifically, the unmanned
aircraft are not meeting flight hour goals. Although CBP anticipated
increased apprehensions of illegal border crossers, a reduction in
border surveillance costs, and improvement in the U.S. Border Patrol’s
efficiency, we found little or no evidence that CBP met those program
expectations. We estimate that, in fiscal year 2013, it cost
at least $62.5 million to operate the program, or about $12,255 per
hour. The Office of Air and Marine’s calculation of $2,468 per flight
hour does not include operating costs, such as the costs of pilots,
equipment, and overhead. By not including all operating costs, CBP also
cannot accurately assess the program’s cost effectiveness or make
informed decisions about program expansion. In addition, unless CBP
fully discloses all operating costs, Congress and the public are unaware
of all the resources committed to the Unmanned Aircraft System program.
As a result, CBP has invested significant funds in a program that has
not achieved the expected results, and it cannot demonstrate how much
the program has improved border security. Given the cost of
the Unmanned Aircraft System program and its unproven effectiveness, CBP
should reconsider its plan to expand the program. The $443 million that
CBP plans to spend on program expansion could be put to better use by
investing in alternatives, such as manned aircraft and ground
surveillance assets.

An effective wall, however, could prevent the illegal entry of aliens and contraband in the first place.

This should be a matter of common sense, yet many members of Congress have resisted the construction of a wall.

The major corporations that sell the government the drones, cameras
and sensors find this to be an extremely lucrative venture. All too
frequently you have to consider the potential for what has come to be
referred to as “crony capitalism.”

Of far greater
concern however, is the simple and unavoidable conclusion that I came to
many years ago. I have come to refer to this as the magic act, comparable to the magician who promises his audience that he will slice his lovely assistance in half.

Using all sorts of devices, blue smoke, mirrors and lighting, the
magician creates a most convincing illusion that he had, indeed, cut the
poor young woman in half. However, to everyone’s relief, after the
stunt is carried out, his assistant bounds up onto the stage to the
enthusiastic applause and cheers of the audience.

Of course,
it is clear that the last thing that the magician would want to do is
really slice his assistant in half. He would go to jail and probably
never be able to find anyone willing to work with him again.

Politicians like Schumer and Pelosi know damned well that the great
majority of Americans, including their supposed constituents want our
borders secured against the illegal entry of aliens, particularly the
criminals and terrorists among them. The politicians know that the
voters want to keep drugs out of their communities. However, the
politicians also know that the majority of the special interest groups,
such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce want our borders left open so that
cheap and exploitable workers can flood into the United States.

Politicians know that they need those campaign contributions from
those special interest groups if they are to win their next elections,
so they are compelled to meet the demands of their de-facto employers,
those who write those big, fat political campaign checks.

Not
unlike that magician, politicians have become adept at creating
illusions that they are eager to secure our borders and demonstrate this
by voting for expensive measures and programs that are largely
worthless, but create the convincing illusion that lots of money is
being spent to meet the demands of their constituents while, in reality,
just as the magician’s assistant is unharmed, the flood of exploitable
workers will be able to continue without impediment.

So, while
Schumer continues to drone on, and on, ad nauseam, the truth is that
America’s borders cannot be secured by blue smoke and mirrors.

Michael CutlerSource: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272349/why-trumps-wall-must-michael-cutler Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Sinaloa Cartel recruiting gangster jihadists.

Chérif Chekatt, the 29-year-old perpetrator of the December 11,
2018, mass shooting in Strasbourg, France was designated a gangster
jihadist by French Police. The term refers to people previously
convicted of various crimes and radicalized in prison. Chekatt, a French
born citizen was a hardened criminal with 27 convictions in France,
Germany, and Switzerland.

Gangster-jihadists are not just
recruited in prison by Islamic extremists. The Sinaloa Cartel appears to
have seized upon the opportunity to recruit and exploit hundreds of
locals in France and Germany, including children and refugees already
primed by jihadist propaganda, many possessing criminal records and
combat experience. International law enforcement agencies have long
known that Hezbollah launder money for the Sinaloa cartel. Recently,
German law enforcement have been aggressively disrupting the criminal
operations of traditional Arab Clans in Berlin and even the operations
of La Cosa Nostra. Neither are known to have been affiliated with
Sinaloa or Hezbollah. Sinaloa have quickly filled the narco-vacuum,
similar to how the Cali Cartel took over Pablo Escobar's market after
the DEA killed him. The sudden and alarming proliferation of top-shelf
weaponry among Hamas and Hezbollah on the Israeli border is very likely
the consequence of a renewed and strengthened alliance between them and
Sinaloa, in which German-based "refugees" deal Sinaloan coke and heroin
and kick part of the profits back to their Iran-based handlers,
Hezbollah who, in turn, shuffle weapons over to Lebanon. This
arrangement provides Iran deniability, while also providing Sinaloa
broader access to and deeper penetration of the German narco market, as
well as plenty of easy money to SUV-driving, Gucci-toting
"refugees."

Music and accompanying videos of German
Rappers further indicate a new alliance of transnational criminal
organizations drug trafficking and Islamic State terrorism. Jihadist
sympathizers and Islamic State fighters have long embraced hip-hop
culture, specifically gangsta rap, to promote and disseminate their
message via the Internet and social media. ‘Jihad Rap’ was a successful
recruitment tool targeting young men who felt dispossessed and
marginalized, one of the most notorious being the German rapper and ISIS
terrorist, Denis Cuspert, aka "Deso Dog". After the fall of the Islamic
State Caliphate a new form of gangsta rap emerged in Germany. Best
described as ‘Cartel Jihad Rap’ it is a combination of Islamic State
nasheed, jihad rap and narco-cultura.

Fawzi Yamouni aka Fousy
is a German rapper and producer of Algerian origin from Siegen, Germany.
Chérif Chekatt’s most recent prison sentence was served in Singen,
Germany. He was radicalized in the infamous area of Konstanz, a town
that borders France and has been a hub of Islamic radicalism since the
mid-1990s. Many of Germany's prisons are now effective recruiting
stations and training camps for cartel jihadis. Chekatt was expelled to
France after his release in 2017.

Fousy produces and composes
his own songs in the music genre Hip-Hop and Trap. Since 2017 he is
under contract with the label Almaz Musiq of the Heidelberg rapper Kurdo
who calls himself a "Rapper-terrorist." On March 2, 2018, the first
release of Fousy appeared on Almaz Musiq entitled "20Mille EP". This
release contains 7 songs in EP format including "Sinaloa Cartel”
(featuring Kurdo)", "Sicario" and "Narcos". In April 2018, the "20 Mille
EP" was voted the 8th best release in the month of March by 49 hip-hop
releases in the user-voting on the German hip-hop portal Hiphop.de. This
inspired an explosion of Sinaloa narco-cultura symbols among German
youth, who are making their own narco-cultura tee-shirts, hoodies, and
tattoos, imitating and honoring their "role models" like El Chapo, Pablo
Escobar, "Tony Montana," who many believe was a real person. The
emergence of these symbols of narco-terrorists on the streets coincides
with Fousy's growing popularity. They were not significantly present
before 2018. Chekatt, also of Algerian origin, was most likely familiar
with Fousy’s music, which is especially popular among teenaged ethnic
and Muslim populations in Konstanz.

Fousy’s music video ‘Narcos’
is a high-quality polished production that glorifies narco culture and
promotes Islamic terrorism. The German language video depicts a
luxurious lifestyle with expensive designer watches, duffle bags,
clothing, weapons, cars and equipment, but blended and back dropped with
jihadi and Salafi symbolism. On the surface the Narcos video glorifies
drug trafficking but also functions as a terrorism training manual
pointing out specific tactics and targets. It depicts men receiving
messages on a shortwave radio, creating fake identities and building a
bomb. The names on the forged identification cards include standard
German names as well as Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish names, which is meant
to suggest a kind of multicultural gang. The pluralism of the new gang
has appeal to street criminals like Chérif Chekatt, as well as
war-hardened refugees seeking a new home identity.

Images of
Islamic State militants fleetingly appear throughout the Narcos video.
This differs from narco propaganda which emphasizes drug trafficking and
cartel affiliation. These subliminal messages symbolize an ideological
identification with the global jihad and a continuation of Islamic State
goals. Nasheed rhythms reinforce this imagery, as well as lyrics that
categorically list all the cities in which ISIS mass casualty terrorist
attacks have taken place in the past four years. The attacks are praised
in the name of Allah. The video also includes aerial shots and
blueprints of the Port of Rotterdam Harbor,
the largest port in Europe. Located in the city of Rotterdam,
Netherlands, the harbor appears to be the terrorism target in the video.

The Sinaloa Cartel music video
was written by Fousy and Kurdo and released on February 8, 2018. The
German language video includes images of a homicide crime scene,
expensive cars, hotel rooms, euros and mapping imagery [from Oman City,
to Marseille, to Heidelberg, to Frankfurt]. One scene depicts a woman
weighing, wrapping and hiding drugs in dead fish while wearing a narco /
soldier skeleton bandana. The Sinaloa Cartel had previously smuggled
drugs using fish.

She is the only woman in the video. She is
white, covered in tattoos, has make up, black hair, long black nails and
sexual clothing. She is later depicted lying dead in a bath tub with
her throat slashed. Both Jihad and Narco culture is male dominated and
women are considered inferior, submissive and subservient to men. Many
women are labor and sex trafficked by both cartel and jihadist gangs.

Another scene depicts Kurdo rapping in front of kids from his home
project and packing drugs into a duffle bag. The use of kids in the
video from one of the rapper's home projects reveals the recruitment
base/target group. The projects scene is in Heidelberg, the same
building that Kurdo grew up in. The kids are holding the album on which
Kurdo's hit song "Ya Salam" appears. Ya Salam means "Well done!" in this
context Kurdo means, "Well done, ISIS, in Amsterdam," and all the other
cities in which ISIS conducted mass-casualty terrorist attacks. The
video ends with a time bomb placed in front of the Frankfurt Opera House
signaling it as a target. Jihadists have previously targeted concert
venues including the Bataclan theatre in Paris on November 13, 2015.

The two main activities of the Narcos and Sinaloa Cartel music videos
is running drugs and building bombs. The bomb building is associated
with jihad imagery. The drug running is elaborated with narco-cultura
imagery. The videos source the point of origin for the drugs in America,
coming in from the West through North Africa, which may be a
declaration of war on Turkish and Russian cartels who push their drugs
into Germany from the East, typically through Istanbul, Prague, and
along the Middle Land Canal.

The lyrics in the videos create a
new gang language by introducing and effectively adding key
narco-cultura Spanish terms to German street slang, terms such as
"vato," that already uses many Arabic, Kurdish, and Turkish words. Vato
is cartel Spanish for what the Italian mafia call "a made man." The
lyrics repeatedly glorify Pablo Escobar, El Chapo, and other well-known
narco kingpins. The lyrics strictly eschew white German or Western women
in favor of Muslim or Arabic women, who are commonly called Cleopatras.
White women are referred to throughout the albums in English as "hoes"
or "bitches" or "whores."

Distinctions between terrorists and
transnational criminal organizations are blurred in these rap videos.
The videos target juvenile criminals and jobless refugees for
recruitment in Germany, France and the European Union. Cartel jihad rap
is distinct from early Al-Qaeda recruitment videos that radicalized
students, intellectuals or other previously non-violent individuals and
were often longwinded sermons from bin Laden. They also differ from
‘jihad rap’ that specifically promoted a Salafi pro-jihad message. This
album is unique in that it openly affiliates with the Sinaloa Cartel and
appeals to young men like Chérif Chekatt who are already accustomed to
and excited by violence. Unlike typical jihad propaganda the narco
cultura aspect celebrates wealth and materialism depicting narco-culture
as a Western lifestyle acceptable for the jihadi.

These
videos inspire a new type of terrorist, one who wants to survive his
attack, enjoy his newly acquired respect and live to kill again. If he
survives, he earned his gangster jihadi street cred, if he is captured
and sent to prison he is celebrated as a hero, if he is killed, he is a
martyr for Islam. It’s a win-win, Paradise on earth and in heaven.

Dawn Perlmutter and Doyle QuiggleDawn Perlmutter Bio:
Dawn Perlmutter is the Director of the Symbol Intelligence Group and
one of the leading subject matter experts (SME) in symbols, symbolic
anthropological methodologies, semiotics; atypical homicide and
ritualistic crimes. She trains law enforcement agencies throughout the
United States and presents expert witness testimony on ritual homicides.

Doyle Quiggle Bio:
Doyle Quiggle researches the anthropology of war from within the
battlespace, focusing on counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency. He has
deployed as a battle-space professor to US Troops downrange, at Camp
Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa and at FOB Fenty, Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
His articles have appeared in Small Wars Journal; Journal of Terrorism
Research; Foreign Policy; Arizona Quarterly; and Augean Stables.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272321/cartel-jihad-rap-dawn-perlmutter Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

ACLU: the faithful friend to America’s foes.

“The ACLU is creating more national immigration policy than the federal government.” That was Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones
back in 2015, after the American Civil Liberties Union sent letters to
sheriff’s departments across the country explaining that immigration
detainers are requests, not commands, and threatening legal action with
those sheriffs who comply.

Since more than 200 jurisdictions
failed to honor all ICE detainers, Jones said, “we’ve become a de facto
sanctuary state.” California is now an actual sanctuary state, and has
made false-documented illegals, even violent criminals, a privileged,
protected class. The ACLU still takes measures to ensure that no
criminals ever get deported.

Of the 1,303 immigrants at
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department facilities in 2017, 83 percent
of those detainees were Hispanic. That year ICE conducted 51 interviews
at county facilities, barely 2 percent of all law enforcement interviews
that took place. Yet ACLU attorney Sean Riordan expressed concern
about, “the experiences people have had in being transferred from
sheriff’s custody to ICE custody.”

The ACLU also strives to
keep the U.S. border open for virtually anybody who wants to cross it,
for any reason. In August, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump
administration over its decision to remove asylum protections for
victims of domestic and gang violence.

“This is a naked attempt by the Trump administration to eviscerate our country’s asylum protections,” ACLU attorney Jennifer Chang Newell told reporters. “It’s clear the administration’s goal is to deny and deport as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.”

On the other hand, the ACLU favors deportation if the country of origin is a Stalinist dictatorship.

Elizabeth Broton Rodriguez fled Communist Cuba in 1999 and perished
with ten others. Her son Elian Gonzalez, age five, was found floating in
an inner tube and taken to relatives in Florida. The Clinton
administration set out to deport Elian to Communist Cuba, and the ACLU
agreed.

ACLU attorney Brenda Bernstein Shapiro
blasted “the failure to return Elian to his father,” still in Cuba. The
ACLU also urged the court to rejected the concerns of his Miami
relatives about custody being determined by the best interests of the
child. The ACLU further argued that federal courts must have
jurisdiction to review Immigration and Naturalization Service decisions
on asylum applications.

When Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno deployed a SWAT team to grab Elian from relatives, the ACLU said in statement
that “law enforcement officers have a right to protect themselves.”
ACLU bosses got what they wanted, the return of a child to the
dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

When “unaccompanied minors” now show up at the southern border, the
ACLU does not want to send them back to their parents in Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador. And the ACLU does not want ICE agents looking
for criminal illegals in American jails. As Reagan Attorney General
Edwin Meese said, the ACLU is a criminals’ lobby, also concerned about the rights of terrorists.

After the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, the ACLU’s major concern
was that police would question the suspect without reading his Miranda
rights. In 2016, the ACLU rushed to provide legal counsel to Ahmad Khan Rahami, in custody following a bombing in New York that injured 31, and a gun battle with police.

In 2005 in California, when the FBI made contact with Hamid Hayat about connections with an al-Qaida training camp, the ACLU teamed with CAIR to charge that the FBI had violated Hayat’s rights. In 2006 he was sentenced to 24 years.

In 2009, ACLU boss Anthony Romero
said in statement, “Immediately after President Obama took the
courageous step of ordering the closure of the illegal detention camp at
Guantánamo,” a “chorus of Bush administration apologists” opposed the
move. According to Romero, “It was the Bush administration’s detention
and torture policies that made us less safe and more reviled by the
Muslim world,” and “President Obama’s executive orders are a first step
to defusing that hatred and giving us an America we can be proud of
again.”

This from a supposedly non-partisan organization
dedicated only to civil liberties. In reality, the ACLU always had a
problem with America.

ACLU founder Roger Baldwin,
wrote that the Soviet Union “has already created liberties far greater
than exist elsewhere in the world.” Baldwin was “for Socialism,
disarmament, and ultimately the abolishing of the state itself as an
instrument of violence and compulsion.” Baldwin headed the ACLU until
1950 and in later years explained, “I wanted what the communists wanted
and I traveled the United Front road to get it.”

On January 16, 1981, President Jimmy Carter awarded Roger Baldwin
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, praising the ACLU founder as “an
inspiration to those of us who have fought for human rights, a saint to
those for whom he has gained them.” Any regime that opposed the United
States could count on Baldwin’s support, and that bias remains with
ACLU.

The public does not elect ACLU bosses, but as Scott
Jones sees it, the ACLU is creating immigration policy. For their part,
elected representatives might require the ACLU to register as an agent
of the foreign governments whose citizens they represent. That
requirement might also apply to any U.S. officials who serve the
interest of false-documented foreign nationals above the interests of
legitimate American citizens and legal immigrants.

Muslims show increasing indifference to the breakdown in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, but Leftists express growing anger over it.

As Arabs and Muslims warm to Israel, the Left grows colder. These shifts imply one great imperative for the Jewish state.

On the first shift: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently pointed out "a great change" in the Arab world which has a growing connection to Israeli companies because it needs Israeli "technology and innovation, ... water, electricity, medical care, and high-tech." Explaining this normalization as a result of Arab states "looking for links with the strong," Netanyahu was too tactful of American liberals to add another factor: Barack Obama's policy of appeasing Tehran jolted the Arab states to get serious about the real threats facing them.

It is striking to note that full-scale Arab state warfare versus Israel lasted a mere 25 years (1948-73) and ended 45 long years ago; and that Turkey and Iran have since picked up the anti-Zionist torch.

Nor is it just Israeli companies making inroads into Arab countries. The Israeli minister of sports broke into tears as Hatikvah, Israel's anthem, was played in Abu Dhabi upon the victory of an Israeli athlete. Rumors are swirling about a handshake to come between Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) and Israel's prime minister.

That Arab and Muslim enmity has fractured, probably never to be reconstituted, amounts to one tectonic shift in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The second, no less important, involves the global Left's growing hostility to Israel.

This pattern can be found consistently from South Korea to Thailand to South Africa to Sweden to Brazil. The Durban conference of 2001 initially brought this phenomenon to light. Among many other examples, the Black Lives Matter platform accuses Israel of "apartheid" and "genocide." A communist labor union in India representing 16 million farmers, apparently joined the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement.

An All India Kisan Sabha rally. Note the hammer and sickle.

Attitudes toward the Jewish state follow an almost linear progression of growing negativity as one goes from right to left. A 2012 Pew Research Center survey of American adults found 75 percent of conservative Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, followed by 60 percent of moderate and liberal Republicans, 47 percent of Independents, 46 percent of conservative and moderate Democrats, and 33 percent of liberal Democrats.

It was not always thus. Joseph Stalin was so instrumental to Israel's birth in 1947-49 by providing diplomatic support and armaments that Abba Eban, Israel's first UN ambassador, observed that "we couldn't have made it, either diplomatically or militarily," if not for Soviet help. Democrats Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy rank among the most pro-Israel of American presidents, but Republican Dwight Eisenhower was unquestionably the most antagonistic.

MbS versus Jeremy Corbyn symbolizes these two tectonic shifts, as does Israel now enjoying better relations with Egypt than with Sweden. The president of Chad turns up in Israel but a singer from New Zealand does not. Israel's athletes compete in the United Arab Emirates but get banned in Spain. Muslims show increasing indifference to the breakdown in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, but Leftists express growing anger over it.

This last point has great importance: the rage against Israel is not about Ashkenazi-Sephardi relations, tensions on the Temple Mount, a possible attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, or Israel's own nuclear weapons. Rather, it almost exclusively concerns the status of some 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Thanks to a mix of Palestinian public relations expertise and continued antisemitism, the welfare of this small and powerless but fanatical population has transmogrified into the premier global issue of human rights, getting endlessly more attention than, say, Ethiopia – and motivates nearly all denunciations of Israel.

The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona: not the source of Israel's public relations problems.

Therefore, when the Left, now largely excluded from power, eventually returns to office in countries like Japan, India, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Israel will face a crisis due to the unresolved situations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Accordingly, a resolution of this issue should be an utmost priority for Israelis.

That does not mean touting yet another "peace plan" doomed to crash on the hard rock of Palestinian intransigence. It does mean, whatever one's favored plan might be, the need to end Palestinian aggression toward Israel: no more suicide attacks, kite bombings, and rockets. Only this will soothe Leftist rage.

Only an Israel victory and a Palestinian defeat will achieve this. In other words, getting the Palestinians to cry uncle is an urgent priority for Israel and its supporters.

The Democrats would rather see children die than build a wall.

Since the Democrats went to war against what they called, “family
separation”, two migrant children have died. They did not die, as the
media would have you believe, because border security is cruel, but
because encouraging migrants to cross the desert with their children, as
the media has done, is evil.

The outrage, the tears and fury
over the policy of deterring illegal migrants from using children to
force their way into this country was not compassionate. It did not help
migrant children. It killed them.

The 8-year-old boy from
Guatemala and the 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, who died earlier this
month, are the casualties of their false compassion for children. The
media would have its viewers, readers and listeners believe that its
outrage was meant to save children. It was not. It was meant to take
their lives.

The dead children are not the victims of an
overworked Border Patrol that has been deliberately starved of the
resources to do its job, because its job would limit the ability of
Democrats to steal elections. They are the victims of abusive parents or
caretakers, who are willing to use the lives of their children as
tickets to get inside the United States, not to escape persecution, but
to double or triple their incomes.

The migrants are not
refugees fleeing totalitarian regimes that are persecuting them for
their beliefs. They are economic migrants who are willing to kill their
children to earn more and get more free stuff. And they are every bit as
guilty as the parents who leave their children to die in hot cars while
they play slot machines. Any sane society would treat their murderous
abuse of their children the same way.

Unfortunately we are not a sane society.

The flow of illegal migrants manufactures Democrat votes, not just
through illegal voting, but through the far more pervasive problem of
fake districts, boosted by illegal aliens and other non-citizens. The
political machine that turned California into a Democrat one-party state
where democracy is an alien concept, that has ravaged Virginia and has
its gimlet eye on Texas, depends on illegal migration.

Americans have turned on the Democrats, their entire future depends on
migration, legal and illegal. Without displacing American votes with
foreign votes, the Democrats would have no future.

Dead kids
are a small price to pay for the Democrats winning a few more House
seats so Nancy Pelosi can get down to the business of repaying all her
billionaire backers with taxpayer money. Not only are the dead children a
small price to pay for political capital, but the media arm of the
Democrats will exploit their deaths to create more political capital.
Kill more children, win more elections.

The more children die,
the more money the Democrats will have to divert to a “Green New Deal”
for the billionaires funding their dirty tricks campaigns, gerrymandered
maps and stolen elections.

It’s a political strategy made in hell and the DNC.

The deaths of these two children are already being used to argue for a
further dismantling of border security that will lead to the flow of
more illegal migrants and the deaths of more children.

This
Cloward-Piven strategy for using children to kill immigration
enforcement took off earlier with phony outrage over family separation
by a political movement exploiting their suffering for votes. Now the
strategy has fully matured by using not just the abuse of children, but
their deaths, to perpetuate the abusive behaviors that led to their
deaths.

The more children die, the more pressure there is to
dismantle border security, and the more border security is dismantled,
the more illegal migration will increase and the more children will die.

The Democrat war on border security is being lubricated with the deaths of children.

Meanwhile Senator Schumer and Rep. Pelosi have shut down the
government to prevent it from building a wall that would save the lives
of the children being trafficked through the desert.

The only
way to stop children from dying in desert crossings is to put an end to
the entire practice. And the only way to do that, to stop migrants from
gambling that they can get away with it, is to build a wall.

Democrat leaders insist that they would rather shut down the government
than build a wall because walls don’t work. Rep. Pelosi claimed that it
would be immoral to waste money on a wall. Sen. Jeff Merkley claimed
that a wall was “fourth century technology”. So is the wheel. And fire.

Walls work quite well. That’s why military bases, government buildings and the Obama home have them.

The Democrats don’t oppose a wall because they’ve suddenly developed a
conscience over “wasting” $5 billion in the massive multi-trillion
budgets that have become the norm. The same politicians who casually
plunk down the lifetime income of a working family on a study about
alcoholic lesbians or the sex lives of squirrels at one of their
hometown academic institutions have not suddenly learned to watch
taxpayer wallets. If Trump had proposed spending $5 billion on a giant
hamster wheel or another Vermont museum dedicated to President Chester
A. Arthur, it would be in the budget.

Democrats are willing to shut down the government over a wall because they fear it would work.

A wall would cut off the flow of illegal aliens, shrink the growth of
illegal alien districts and kill the electoral strategy of the Democrats
for the next twenty years. And it would save children’s lives.

Building a wall would save the lives of American children taken by illegal alien drunk drivers.

Like Marten Kudlis, a 3-year-old boy who died on the floor of a Baskin
Robbins with his jugular vein slashed by broken glass after an illegal
alien, who had previously been arrested 16 times, slammed into a pickup
truck while going 81 miles an hour. Or 11-year-old Abigail Robinson and
6-year-old Anna Dieter-Eckerdt who were killed when an illegal alien
DREAMER ran over them while playing in a pile of leaves.

But
building a wall would also stop children from being exploited and abused
by illegal aliens. A wall would save the little boys and girls, who
suffer and die, while being used as pawns by the Democrats.

The Democrats would rather shut down the government than build a wall.
They would rather see women raped in the desert than build a wall. They
would rather see children die than build a wall.

The best way
to deal with the deaths of these two children is not to dismantle border
security. That would lead to even more deaths. It’s to stop children
from being endangered by ending illegal migration.

Save the children, build a wall.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and
Islamic terrorism.Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272368/save-children-build-wall-daniel-greenfield Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Any Palestinians who dare to ask Hamas the wrong questions will find themselves behind bars.

Palestinian columnist Sami Fuda denounced the Hamas crackdown on its critics in Gaza: "Apparently, freedom of expression is unacceptable to the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip... The policy of intimidating and imprisoning writers will not deter them and is completely ineffective and unacceptable."

While these few Palestinians have expressed concern over Hamas's effort to silence its critics, international human rights organizations, including some that operate in the Gaza Strip, continue to turn a blind eye to this assault on public freedoms. They are either afraid of Hamas, or they do not give a damn about human rights violations unless they can find a way of pointing an accusatory finger at Israel.

Hamas is prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rally marking the 31st anniversary of its founding, but says it cannot afford to provide financial aid to impoverished Palestinians. Meanwhile, any Palestinians who dare to ask Hamas the wrong questions will find themselves behind bars.

What does the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas do when it is not firing rockets at Israel or sending Palestinians to clash with Israeli soldiers along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel? It sends its security officers to arrest, interrogate, intimidate and harass anyone who dares to criticize Hamas. Pictured: Palestinians in Gaza prepare to attack Israeli soldiers at the border fence with Israel on May 14, 2018. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

What does the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas do when it is not firing rockets at Israel or sending Palestinians to clash with Israeli soldiers along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel? It sends its security officers to arrest, interrogate, intimidate and harass anyone who dares to criticize Hamas.

It is not as if anyone was expecting Hamas to act differently. The terms democracy and freedom of expression have never been in Hamas's dictionary. For Hamas, it is either you are with us or you are against us. There is no third option for Palestinians living under Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip, even for those who were previously associated with Hamas, but later changed their minds and dared to express a different opinion or, worse, criticize the Islamist movement.

In the past week alone, Hamas has arrested two Palestinian academics on suspicion that they voiced criticism of the group: professor of biology Salah Jadallah and writer Khader Mihjez.

Jadallah was arrested earlier this week after he posted a comment on Facebook in which he accused the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip of enjoying a comfortable life while Palestinians were wallowing in poverty and misery. In the December 19 post, he wrote: "It's a life of hypocrisy, lies and quackery when an official lives in luxury while his people are overstrained and impoverished." He went on to accuse the Hamas officials of stealing funds earmarked for the people in order to build villas and mansions for themselves.

On December 26, Jadallah's son, Mohammed, said that Hamas ordered his father remanded into custody and refused to release him on bail. "My father criticized corruption in general and was not talking about a specific person or family," the son said.

This was not the first time that Prof. Jadallah found himself in trouble because of his public criticism of Hamas. In March 2016, he was suspended from his job at the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip because of Facebook comments criticizing Hamas and the university administration.

The professor, according to Palestinian sources, was once considered a prominent figure in Hamas -- probably why Hamas takes him seriously. As someone who grew up in Hamas, he knows more than anyone else about the conduct of the group's top brass. Far from being an outsider or a political rival, Jadallah is the ultimate Hamas insider.

The second man, Mihjez, was detained by Hamas for several hours on December 26 -- apparently for criticizing the arrest of Jadallah. In one Facebook post, Mihjez asked: "What is the academic degree that the man who is interrogating Prof Salah Jadallah hold?" Because of this rhetorical question, Hamas summoned Mihjez for several hours of interrogation.

Two years ago, Mihjez was also arrested by Hamas after he wrote a series of articles in which he explained why he no longer supported the Muslim Brotherhood organization. Notably, Hamas is an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood.

A Gaza-based group called the Journalists Forum for Human Rights condemned the Hamas measures against Jadallah and Mihjez as a "violation of freedom of expression" and called on Hamas to explain why its men were harassing prominent figures in the Gaza Strip.

Commenting on the arrest of Jadallah, Hassan Asfour, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet minister and columnist, said that most Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip shared the professor's criticism of the Hamas leadership, but were afraid to speak out:

"Professor Jadallah did not use a sword or bullets. What he said was not a secret. According to which logic was he taken away at night and thrown in detention centers that carry several names? What kind of message of terror is Hamas trying to impose on the Gaza Strip? Hamas is panicking, and that's why it won't allow any form of criticism of its policies. Intellectual repression and the confiscation of freedom of opinion, as well as preventing the exposure of corruption, is more dangerous to the society than any disease."

Another Palestinian columnist, Sami Fuda, also denounced the Hamas crackdown on its critics:

"Apparently, freedom of expression is unacceptable to the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip... The policy of intimidating and imprisoning writers will not deter them and is completely ineffective and unacceptable."

While these few Palestinians have expressed concern over Hamas's effort to silence its critics, international human rights organizations, including some that operate in the Gaza Strip, continue to turn a blind eye to this assault on public freedoms. They are either afraid of Hamas, or they do not give a damn about human rights violations unless they can find a way of pointing an accusatory finger at Israel. The silence of the international community toward human rights violations in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip allows the Islamist group to continue its policy of intimidation against its critics.The Hamas measures against its critics are aimed at preventing Palestinians and the rest of the world from learning about the group's corrupt dictatorship. Hamas leaders want to continue living the good life while their people are facing devastating living conditions. The millions of dollars of Qatari cash that were delivered to Hamas in the past few weeks have further emboldened the group, giving it carte blanche to intimidate its critics.Hamas is more interested in muzzling its critics than improving the lives of its people. Hamas leaders are more interested in padding their own bank accounts than in grappling with the problems of unemployment. Hamas is prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rally marking the 31st anniversary of its founding, but says it cannot afford to provide financial aid to impoverished Palestinians. Meanwhile, any Palestinians who dare to ask Hamas the wrong questions will find themselves behind bars.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13477/palestinians-silencing-intimidating-critics Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter